The Snapdragon and the Sunflower
by Cimz
Summary: Five times Brady and Eric got to know each other, and one time they already did. (Or: how it is that they greeted each other like brothers the first time they ever had a conversation on screen.) Compatible with my one-shot The Aerialist, but fine to be read alone. Long one-shot; complete.


**The Snapdragon and the Sunflower**

 _Five times Brady and Eric got to know each other, and one time they already did. (Or: how it is that they greeted each other like brothers the first time they ever had a conversation on screen.) Compatible with my one-shot The Aerialist, but fine to be read alone. Long one-shot; complete._

* * *

 ** _1\. Salem: 1997_**

Eric wasn't old enough to buy a beer or rent a car, but he was definitely too old, in his humble opinion, to move in with his mother and the man with whom she had cheated on his father.

Unfortunately, the situation with Sami, Carrie, and Austin meant that, at least temporarily, Eric needed to be anywhere that was not the apartment complex where the three of them were playing musical beds.

He felt sad for Carrie, who was begging him to find a way to prove that the man who had fathered Sami's child was really in love with her.

He felt sad for Sami, who was an injured teenage mother helplessly in love with a man who, behind her back, professed to want Carrie.

He felt sad for all of them for having to put up with Lucas, who Eric could just tell was a weasel.

He felt the saddest for little Will, caught in the middle of the strange quartet.

That was why Eric had packed a bag and fled Carrie's apartment. He needed time to think without being lobbied by Carrie, inadvertently guilt-tripped by Sami, and constantly evaluated by both Lucas and Austin. Escaping the sadness for a little while would clear his head.

Unfortunately, he didn't have many friends left in Salem after five years in Colorado, and he didn't have much money, either. That left _Can I stay with you for a few days, Mom?_ as his only option.

Marlena had lit with delight and said that he could stay forever.

John was welcoming, too, which was annoying. Everything John did annoyed Eric. John and Marlena's affair had left Roman dead and Sami traumatized, as if John lying about being Carrie, Sami, and Eric's father hadn't been bad enough.

All right.

Eric did know that John hadn't lied.

But having John as his father, and then suddenly not, had been weird.

And being confronted every day with the girl who was the living embodiment of John and Marlena's affair would be weird.

And being confronted every day with the boy who was John and Isabella's real son where Eric had been their temporary pretend son might be the weirdest of all.

Belle, after all, was his sister. He knew about sisters.

Brady was… what, precisely? Stepbrother-in-waiting, relationship to be formalized when John and Marlena officially got re-married? (Did the marriage that had taken place when John had been calling himself Roman still count? Eric's performance as ring bearer on the occasion had been something of an embarrassment. He'd panicked and been afraid to walk down the aisle, and he would just as soon forget the whole thing. Unfortunately, he couldn't. It was one of the humiliations that quietly rose up in his mind when he couldn't sleep— just as bad as when Sami had learned to ride a two-wheeler without instruction before Eric had had the courage to let John take his hand off his handlebar.)

* * *

It turned out that there had been no need to worry about Belle and Brady during his temporary escape from Sami and Carrie, because Belle and Brady were the most pleasant children on the planet. Everyone said so, and it turned out that everyone was right. Brady and Belle loved everyone and everything. Most of all, they loved each other, and sometimes Eric swallowed hard and had to remind himself that he was watching his little sister and her brother, not peeking into the past and looking at himself and Sami in simpler times.

Given half a chance, Belle and Brady liked to drag Eric up to their bedrooms. Belle's was an explosion of pink; Brady's featured baseball-themed sheets, wallpaper, curtains, and posters. Eric personally thought that the baseball-themed toothbrush and toothpaste in the bathroom were a bit much, but the overall effect was still idyllic.

He tried not to be jealous.

* * *

On Eric's third night in the Marlena's penthouse, a violent thunderstorm woke him from a troubled sleep. He stood at the window and watched the lightening. Something about the beautiful, dangerous picture it painted calmed him.

He had sensed nothing but pain from Sami, and his twin-sense was never wrong. And yet, some of the things she said and did were too perfectly self-serving to have come from someone who had no memory.

He would do as Carrie asked. He would investigate his own twin sister's behavior to make sure that she wasn't faking her amnesia to keep Austin close. If Carrie's theory turned out to be wrong, no real harm would be done.

His decision was made, but a deep unease spread through him in place of quiet peace that was supposed to come with choosing the right path.

The unease was why he was still awake when there was a tremulous knock at the door. He opened it a crack, and looked down to see Brady, all startlingly blue eyes and tousled hair.

"Hey," he said kindly, because only monsters were unkind to small children who knocked at their doors in the middle of the night. "Did the storm wake you up?"

Brady nodded.

"Come in," said Eric, and Brady took that as permission to jump right into Eric's bed.

Eric didn't have to wonder why Brady had gone to a virtual stranger rather than to his own father. When he had been Brady's age, he would have gone first to Sami. If he and Sami had found it necessary, they escalated the concern to Carrie's level. John, who would never have been unkind about a terrified midnight wakeup call, had nonetheless been a last resort. There was a certain understanding between brothers and sisters who grew up in tumultuous circumstances.

And Brady was almost his stepbrother whether Eric approved of John and Marlena's relationship or not.

Brady was watching Eric eagerly, vibrating with interest and excitement. The look on his face reminded Eric powerfully of Isabella, who had been such a wonderful mother right when Eric and Sami had really, really needed one. His mind swam with thoughts of poker nights and baseball games. He told his mind to shut up and told Brady to lie down. Brady obeyed with a giant grin on his face.

Eric lay down beside Brady on top of the covers, figuring he would carry the kid to his own room once he fell asleep. Or perhaps he would just leave Brady and get the hell back to Carrie's apartment now that he knew he was going to agree to help Carrie reunite with the man who had impregnated their sister.

(Why were both Carrie and Sami so fascinated with Austin? Eric didn't like him any more than he liked Lucas.)

"Do you have a girlfriend?" asked Brady.

Why did it not surprise Eric that that was the first question? It was everyone's question. At least Brady, unlike Lucas, wasn't going to imply that Eric was a virgin who knew way too much about his sisters' sex lives. That commentary was especially aggravating because Eric was a virgin who knew way too much about his sisters' sex lives.

"No girlfriend," was all Eric told Brady. "I haven't been back in Salem long enough to meet the right person. Do _you_ have a girlfriend?"

"All the girls in school want me to be their girlfriend," said Brady, before cheekily adding "But I haven't met the right person."

"Well, you have time," said Eric sagely.

Brady nodded as if taking Eric's advice to heart before moving on to the next topic. "Are you going to be my brother?"

The kid had managed to choose a second question that was even more loaded than the first. "When my mom marries your dad, we'll be stepbrothers."

"Good," said Brady. "I want a big brother."

Eric had the grace not to tell Brady that he'd never asked for a little brother. Truthfully, he'd been pissed when John and Isabella had replaced him so easily, even though he knew that it was irrational.

"Is your dad dead like my mom is dead?"

"Yes," said Eric bluntly. He was beginning to doubt that Brady had been afraid of the storm at all. He had just composed a list of awkward questions that he wouldn't have been allowed to ask in mixed company and had awaited his opportunity to get Eric alone. John had been a police detective; Isabella had been a private investigator. Those were Brady's genes. He couldn't escape them.

"Did you know your dad?"

"Yes," said Eric, even though that was just barely true. Roman had been in Eric's life for barely a year all told. He'd run off to the ISA when John and Marlena's affair had been revealed, and the ISA had let him die.

"I didn't know my mom," said Brady. "But Marlena is like my mom now. And Kristen was for a while, until Dad got mad at her."

Eric knew this story, too. There had been Marlena, and then Diana, and then Isabella, and then Marlena again…

But Isabella and Diana had been very different from Kristen DiMera. The idea of either of them building a secret room to lock away their romantic rivals was laughable.

The idea of Kristen having a hold on the heart of this infuriating, defenseless little boy terrified him.

"I know that Kristen loves you, but you need to stay away from her now," said Eric severely. "If she talks to you, scream and run."

Brady appeared to consider the matter, but he didn't confirm or deny whether he would take Eric's advice.

"Your mom. Isabella. She would have wanted you to run away from Kristen," said Eric, not caring if it was manipulative. It was true.

"You knew her?"

"Of course." It was the irony to end all ironies. Brady's mother had had a hand in raising Eric, but not Brady. Eric's mother would raise Brady, when she'd been taken from Eric for most of Eric's childhood.

"What was she like?"

Eric tossed out some age-appropriate platitudes about how Isabella had been kind and funny and beautiful. Brady seemed to accept them, and was soon drifting off to sleep.

Since Eric didn't actually want to go back to Carrie's apartment in the middle of a stormy night, he let himself fall asleep as well.

* * *

They were woken the next morning by John's soft call. _"Slugger? Where are you?"_

 _"Eric's room!"_ Brady shouted back

"He calls you _Slugger_?" Eric asked. The baseball theme ran even deeper than he'd thought.

Brady gave a what-can-you-do-about-parents shrug, and Eric couldn't stop the laugh from bubbling up inside of him. He liked Brady. Being his stepbrother wouldn't be so bad.

* * *

The next week, Roman Brady appeared— alive and escorted back to town by none other than Kristen DiMera.

Eric gave up any thoughts he might have had about forgiving John and supporting John and Marlena's marriage. His father was hurting, and he was on his father's side.

He barely saw Belle and Brady. He didn't give John and Marlena his blessing until the day before their wedding, when Sami of all people wrapped her arms around his waist in the bridal shop and looked up at him with beseeching eyes.

After the wedding, Eric saw more and more of Belle, but Brady vanished to baseball camp and then to boarding school.

Eric decided to leave Salem, too, and it was only a fluke that led his path to cross, quite literally, with Brady's.

 ** _2\. Denver: 2000_**

He wasn't sure whether it had happened slowly or all at once, but Brady was sure that he hated almost everyone and almost everything.

He hated airplanes and airports and layovers in random cities like Denver. He hated the restaurants and the shops that filled the airport. He especially hated the t-shirts and caps advertising the Colorado Rockies, because he hated baseball.

Oh, did he ever hate baseball, the sport his father had foisted upon him at a young, impressionable age. Brady had stopped playing in high school, but John hadn't objected because John hadn't known. After all, John had packed Brady off to boarding school.

Brady hated school. He'd hated high school and he hated college, too. He hated the way Belle had stayed at home with their— _her_ — parents, while he had been sent away. It was true that he hadn't asked to come home, but if it had been Belle in his place she would never have had to ask. John and Marlena would have fallen prostrate on the ground before their favorite child and begged her not to leave them.

Most of all, Brady hated Marlena. Once he had thought that she loved him just as much as she loved Belle. He had looked forward to her wedding to his father with every fiber of his being. When it was over, he had thought, she would be his real mother and they would be a real family. It had practically been in the wedding vows:

 _"Brady, you're our sunflower. You're bold, adventurous."_

 _"He'll tackle anything that comes in his way. He inspires us with his courage and high spirits."_

Had Marlena known when she'd stood at the front of the church and complimented him that _she_ would be the thing that came in his way?

He'd gone straight from the wedding to baseball camp, straight from camp to school.

It was his wicked stepmother's doing. He just knew it. She didn't want him around when she could have her precious Belle and her psychotic Sami and her mini-me adulteress Carrie and…

"…Brady?"

And her own, biological son. "Eric?"

Brady couldn't think of anything nasty to say about Eric, other than that Eric was Marlena's child. And that was hardly Eric's fault.

"Where are you headed?" asked Eric.

"Salem," said Brady. "Thought it was about time I checked back in."

Eric eyed Brady appraisingly, and not a little cynically. "Did the same thing when I was your age. Stayed away for a few years and then came back to surprise everyone. Hope it treats you better than it treated me."

"You don't live there anymore?" That surprised Brady. Belle's long, rambling emails covered who had gone to the Last Blast with whom and what everyone had worn, because apparently Brady was supposed to care about Belle's friend Chloe's red dress. He would have expected Belle to find time to tag on a P.S. about how her brother was leaving town.

"Just left." The bitterness was undeniable. "Got a job that's going to take me all over the world, and never back there." Brady eyed the camera bag that was slung protectively over Eric's shoulder. "You laid over here for a while? Can I buy you lunch?"

A moment before, Brady would have preferred bashing his brains out against the arrivals board to breaking bread with Marlena's baby boy. But the anger radiating beneath Eric's golden boy surface was too intriguing to ignore. Besides, heir to a fortune though he might be, Brady never turned down free food. He wasn't going to get access to his dead mother's money until he turned twenty-five.

"Yeah," agreed Brady. "You know a place?" Eric's maternal grandparents lived in Colorado, so Brady figured that Eric had been here before.

"Believe it or not, the best airport pizza you can find is right here." Eric grabbed Brady's arm to steer him in the right direction. "You'd think it would be in O'Hare or something, but it's not."

"There's nothing good about O'Hare," Brady muttered, and that was a long-held conviction, not part of his new philosophy of hating everything. O'Hare was the closest major airport to Salem International, and throughout Brady's childhood, John's attempts to evade the DiMeras while running after Marlena (always his priority) had frequently involved long hours spent there losing a tail.

"Everyone hates O'Hare," Eric agreed mildly. "But there's this— this tunnel connecting two concourses. It's some sort of a light sculpture—"

"With all the neon lights in different colors!" Brady interrupted, amazed that Eric even knew about it. As a child, Brady had been convinced that that tunnel was pure magic. "It's like a mile long."

Eric's face brightened. "Right. There was this one time when I was a kid and Dad— John, took Carrie and Sami and me skiing. We flew out of O'Hare because it was cheaper, and I could have spent the whole vacation sitting there and been happy. I made Sami sit there for like an hour with me, and you have no idea how hard it was to make Sami sit still."

"I can imagine," said Brady, who had met Sami.

"She must have sensed how important it was to me, because she did it. When I'm taking pictures," and Eric cradled the camera protectively against his side, "Light is my best friend and my worst enemy. Even though everything about that tunnel is artificial and unnatural, it's just…"

"Mesmerizing," Brady supplied. Then he mentally scolded himself. He was angry, damn it, and Salem was going to feel his fury.

At the pizza counter, Brady ordered two beers just to be a smartass, and then was forced to contain his laughter when the clerk card-checked Eric (who was of age) but not Brady (who most definitely was not). Eric raised an eyebrow but let it go, and Brady felt a rush of something so closely akin to affection that he began to worry about his ability to make Salem suffer.

Why had he agreed to have lunch with Marlena's little sweetie boy again?

Oh yes. Because Eric had looked pissed off before they'd both started rhapsodizing about pretty lights like a couple of five-year olds.

"So why are you in such a hurry to get away from Salem?" asked Brady just as Eric bit into the pizza he apparently loved so much. He smirked inwardly when Eric's expression shifted from one of delight to one of devastation.

"Women," said Eric. "What else?"

"Yeah," agreed Brady, almost frightening himself with his own vehemence. Eric sounded like a child playing at being a grownup. Brady's own anger was all-consuming. No wonder the clerk had carded Eric but not Brady. Brady gulped at his illegal beer. "Any woman in particular?"

"Yeah," spat Eric. "Nicole Walker."

"You're still pissed that she married Lucas while she was engaged to you?" asked Brady, and then mentally kicked himself for sounding like a little kid who didn't grasp that there was no statute of limitations on stuff like that.

"Believe it or not, I got over that," said Eric. "Everyone almost had me convinced that it was for the best that I found out what Nicole's priorities were before I married her."

"And then what?" asked Brady, trying not to sound too eager.

"And then… Greta. She was older, but she was sweet, you know? Had a way of making me feel like I was a king protecting my queen. And not just because she's probably an actual princess. I promised I would never leave her."

"But you did?"

"Nicole said she had cancer." Eric scowled. "She lied about having cancer to get me to cheat on Greta with her. Can you imagine? How does someone even come up with something like that?"

"Crazy, man," said Brady, shaking his head, even though a rather large part of him was fascinated by the idea that someone could want someone else so completely that she would do something so ridiculous.

In a way, Eric was lucky.

Brady couldn't imagine that anyone would ever want him that much.

And Brady said goodbye to his stepbrother, and Brady made his way to Salem.

And when Brady left Salem, five years later, it was with Belle's friend Chloe on his arm as his wife and with Eric's first love Nicole having left a mark on his heart.

Family was more complicated than he'd thought.

 ** _3\. Vienna: 2006_**

Eric always emailed his mother a copy of his itinerary because it made her feel better about his globetrotting lifestyle. There were always more supermodels to photograph in some exotic locale, and the shallowness of it all was finally starting to gnaw at Eric's soul. He was going to get out of the fashion industry and take pictures of something that really mattered.

Just as soon as his next shoot, the one in Vienna, was complete, he would give his notice.

When his phone rang and the caller ID showed Marlena's name, Eric felt a pang of concern. He knew that his mother was stressed beyond all reason. His little niece Claire, Belle's daughter, was sick, and the way his mother spoke about that Alex North guy was more than disconcerting.

If Eric had been a better person, a braver person, he would have found a way to go back to the town that he was sure was destined to eat him alive.

"Hi, Mom!" he answered cheerily. "Can I pick you up something from Vienna?"

"Actually, it's John."

Eric braced himself for terrible news. "Is my mom okay?"

"She's no different than she's been."

That was something, perhaps.

"What can I do to help?" asked Eric, hoping that the answer wasn't a return to Salem. Salem scared him, even if Nicole had run off to California and Greta had long since returned to Europe.

"You're in Vienna, correct?" asked John.

"Yeah."

"So is Brady. Go check on him for me."

Of all the things Eric might have expected, that hadn't been any of them. "Why does Brady need to be checked on?"

"He and Chloe moved out there as soon as they got married. Young and in love is great, you know that." Eric thought of Nicole and his stomach sank. Yes, young and in love was great until the moment that it wasn't. "The thing is," John continued, "this is all about Chloe's career. I'm glad that Brady wants to support her. She's talented and she deserves it, and he's a good partner. But I'm not sure that there's anything for him there other than her."

"And you want me to spy on him for you?"

"Yes," said John.

Eric was so relieved that John hadn't summoned him to Salem that he agreed right away.

Eric was a coward.

He remembered when his mother had married John. They'd included their children in their wedding vows, and he could recite the passage about him almost word-for-word.

 _"Let's see, we have a snapdragon. Daring, headstrong, smart."_

 _"Keeps all the other flowers on their toes, too. We are always touched by his capacity for love and loyalty."_

 _"That would be Eric."_

It had been a lie. Eric didn't feel daring or headstrong or any of the rest of it, but he at least could manage the love and loyalty to ask Brady to meet him for dinner while he was in town.

* * *

Brady looked different when Eric saw him waiting near the entrance to Cafe Central, just in front of the plaque memorializing the patronage of Freud, Lenin, and Trotsky. (Marlena would no doubt be amused by the first if she ever got over her obsession with that weird Alex North person.)

Brady looked more different than the passage of five years warranted.

Brady was in pain and Brady was going to lie about it. Eric knew that at a glance without knowing how he knew.

Eric asked the questions even though he realized that they would get him nowhere. Brady purported not to be lonely at all stuck in a strange city while Chloe toured and socialized with her musically inclined friends.

"You like to sing, too," Eric recalled, and Brady shook his head.

"It was fun to sing with Chloe when I was falling in love with her," he said bluntly. "But these people are professionals. I'm not like them."

"Then aren't you lonely?" asked Eric, and flinched at his own bluntness. It was good that when he ditched the fashion thing and got into serious journalism, he wouldn't be the one asking questions. He'd just take the pictures.

Brady looked at Eric with amusement. "Dad sent you to check on me, didn't he?" he asked.

"Yes," said Eric, because he knew when he was caught.

"Tell him I'm fine," said Brady, and he smiled with such warmth that Eric almost believed him. If he had had a real brother, and his real brother had been Brady, Eric would have counted himself lucky.

"I will," said Eric, because real siblings always took one another's side against meddling parents. He had known to do that for Carrie and Sami since birth.

"Are you really here for work?" asked Brady.

"Yeah," said Eric. "Photo shoot. It's almost fashion week." He rolled his eyes. "And when it's over, I quit and do something worthwhile."

"Like what?"

"Like take pictures in war zones," said Eric begrudgingly. There was a very real offer, and saying it out loud might give him the nerve to accept it. It would be a lot less money than the fashion circuit, but he had enough savings to cover himself.

Brady whistled. "Be careful, or they'll be sending me to check on you instead of the other way around."

"Maybe you'll be better at it than I am."

Brady shrugged, and a strange sort of curiosity crossed his face. "When did you decide that photography was it for you? That it was a career, not a hobby, the way singing is just a hobby for me but everything for Chloe?"

The thoughtful question surprised Eric, and yet it didn't. Some part of him had always known that Brady would ask this question some day.

"I knew when I was a little kid," said Eric. "The first time a picture changed my life, I think I knew."

Brady gestured that Eric should continue.

"Sami and I were tearing around the house and we found and old photo. It was our mom and your dad and the two of us. Your dad had put it away because Isabella— because your mom had moved in with is and they were going to get married. I guess maybe she was already pregnant with you and they didn't know it."

Brady's whole body tightened. Brady gestured that Eric should continue. Brady didn't even pretend that he wasn't gulping at his beer to get himself through this story. At least Brady was old enough now, Eric mused, remembering the long-ago day in the airport in Denver.

"Sami and I played youth soccer. We were playing in the park one day and we lost our ball. This woman came out of nowhere and gave it back. She looked at us like she was hungry for us, but we were kids and I don't think we thought about it much. Not until a few days later when John took that picture out of the drawer and asked whether we remembered our mother. 'She looks like the lady who gave our ball back,' I said."

"And you were more right than you knew."

Eric tried not to shiver against the force of the memory. "She came downstairs and said she'd never wanted to leave us. John— he was still Dad to us then— told us she was moving in." Eric chuckled humorlessly. "I asked what that meant for Isabella, and Sami said I wasn't allowed to ask that."

Brady gave Eric a look that said that he wasn't surprised. All of their sisters were bossy.

"It happened to be his birthday, so we opened his presents. There was one from Isabella, of course. She got him a baseball card."

Brady, who in more innocent days had answered to "Slugger," laughed.

"And there was a picture of the four of us. Sami and me and John and Isabella in baseball uniforms."

"I've seen that picture," said Brady.

"You should have heard how quiet the room got. I didn't consciously understand why. But that day, I knew the power of photographs. It was Mom in and Isabella out, like our life with Isabella never happened."

Brady stood up without comment and ran from the table.

When he returned, his pupils were dilated and he shifted in his seat.

If Eric had had a more dramatic personality, he might have listened to his gut, which was screaming at him that his stepbrother had just adjourned to the men's room to get high.

"What was it like?" asked Brady. "Living with my mom?"

Of course, Brady had no memories of Isabella, because life was unfair like that.

So Eric talked about the softball games and the poker nights and ice cream and the life they'd all planned together.

"Wasn't it weird?" asked Brady with the carelessness of a man who had had a few beers (Eric refused to give credence to his paranoia that Brady had indulged in more than that). "One day your parents are… well, my parents. And the next day they're your parents."

"Weird?" asked Eric. "Understatement of the year. I felt like they'd handed me over to strangers because they had their real son on the way. And then Isabella… you know she died on Sami's and my birthday, right?"

Brady nodded. He did know that.

"Felt like a personal insult," said Eric. "Like God hated Sami and me. And then Mom was there for you and Belle in those years when she couldn't be there for us."

"I didn't always appreciate it," said Brady, and Eric could feel the rawness of Brady's nerves. "I wasn't always very nice to your mom."

"I wasn't always very nice to your dad," Eric returned.

* * *

Eric and Brady got into the habit of regular emails after that. It had been one of those conversations that made it impossible to pretend that they were distant relations.

Eric felt guilty as sin a few years later when he got the voicemail from Sami telling him that Victor Kiriakis had kidnapped Brady to force him into rehab for his drug problem.

Eric should have acted on his suspicions earlier. He was, after all, kind of sort of Brady's older brother.

But soon Eric had bigger things about which to feel guilty.

 _ **4\. Rome: 2010**_

Brady had expected to do many things in his life, but he had never quite planned on burying a woman alive. In his opinion, circumstances had warranted the course of action and he refused to be sorry. He wasn't bothered by Vivian's threats of revenge, but nonetheless his grandfather insisted on sending him to Europe on business. Once Victor had told the world that Brady was going, Brady had little choice but to go. It would have looked bad to their business partners if he had gone back on his grandfather's word.

Victor had done such a fine job disseminating the word of Brady's world tour that Brady received a phone call from John and Marlena on the subject before he had even told them of his plans.

In a normal family, his parents would have cajoled him to come visit them. His father was currently in an exclusive clinic regaining his ability to walk. Brady had planned to meet up with John and Marlena without any instructions.

Because Brady's family was not normal, John and Marlena instead suggested that he spend some extra time in Rome to see how Eric was doing.

"Why do I need to see how Eric is doing?" Brady asked. Eric's emails had become fewer and farther between recently, but Brady had attributed that to an intense work schedule in parts of the world where internet access wasn't always a given. Brady hadn't even known that Eric had left the Congo for Rome. "Rome is safer than the Congo."

There was a long pause from the other side of the ocean. "Eric is in Rome because he has entered a seminary there," said Marlena at last.

"A seminary like…" Brady trailed off. A seminary couldn't possibly be what he thought it was.

"He's decided to become a priest," said John.

"I love the idea. I love it," Marlena rushed on. "I love the idea of my son wanting to spend his life helping other people. I love that he has a calling. I believe he will be a wonderful priest."

"But it's awfully sudden," said John, and he didn't sound nearly as enthusiastic. John had almost been a priest himself once upon a time. "I just want you to see if you can get a sense about whether he made this decision for the right reasons. If he truly feels called, that's one thing. If he's… well, Eric has always had a habit of running away from things. From the time he was a little boy, he would run. I swear he would have gotten himself killed if I hadn't had Sami to run after him. She always had a way of knowing which way he would go. But I don't think that this is a job for Sami. For one thing, he's asked that she not be told."

"Do they even let students at a seminary talk to… outsiders?" Brady asked.

"Yes," said John. "It's not that different from any other college or university."

Brady doubted that. For one thing, every other college or university Brady had ever heard of had a lot of sex going on. For another thing… Brady didn't need another thing. The first thing illustrated his point quite nicely.

He couldn't imagine what had made Eric decide to become a priest. It was true that he and Eric didn't know each other all that well. They hadn't grown up together. They rarely found themselves on the same continent, let alone in the same town. But Eric was handsome and talented and _had definitely had sex and enjoyed it,_ so this decision made less than no sense.

Their parents were right. It was Brady's responsibility as Eric's pseudo-brother to check up on him. Who else was going to do it? One of their sisters? Brady shuddered at the thought.

"I'm on it," he promised. "I'll text him as soon as I get to Italy. Are priests allowed to text?"

"Yes," said John, as if Brady were deliberately being a smartass, but Brady had really and truly wondered.

* * *

It turned out that not only were seminary students allowed to leave the premises for dinner with their stepbrothers, not only were they allowed to text, they were allowed to _drink_.

"The Bible doesn't forbid alcohol. It forbids drunkenness, and drinking at inappropriate times" said Eric when Brady asked. "But I didn't think you drank, not after the problems you had with drugs?"

Brady shrugged. "I'm a drug addict, not a drunk." He had always liked and admired Eric— even as a small boy afraid of a thunderstorm, he had instinctively known to trust his stepbrother. But he didn't think he would like the version of Eric who thought he shouldn't drink. After everything that had happened with Vivian, not to mention Nicole and Arianna, Brady deserved to drink as much as he damn pleased.

It was a good thing that Eric's vaunted mind-reading radar only extended to his twin sister and not his ersatz brother. Nicole had been Eric's girlfriend first, and so Eric didn't need to know that sometimes a vision of naked Nicole danced through Brady's head even though obviously Arianna was a better choice, being that Arianna had never stolen one of Sami's babies and made Brady an unknowing accessory to the crime. Not to mention that Arianna had never covered Brady's ex-wife's face with flesh-eating bacteria. (Chloe had completely forgiven Nicole for that and even thought of Nicole as a friend. But still, flesh-eating bacteria?)

Brady took a sip of the wine that had appeared on their table and waited for Eric to challenge him.

"If you give Mom and John a good report about me, I certainly don't see why I would have to call them and express concern about you having a glass of wine with dinner," was all Eric said.

"Deal," said Brady. Naturally it was obvious to Eric that Brady had been sent to check on him. The last time they had seen each other, it had been the other way around. "But are you sure about this?"

Eric smiled. "Yes."

"Why?"

"This is one of those things where when you know, you know. It's not that different from— well, the last time you and I did this I was about to change from fashion photography to the journalism end of things, right? I wanted to do something more meaningful. I still do."

There was unquestionably a kernel of truth in that, which was precisely what made for good prevarication.

There was also no doubt that it wasn't Eric's real reason.

But if Brady didn't want to talk about Nicole and Arianna and burying people alive, Eric certainly didn't have to talk about what had made him enroll in a seminary.

"So, have Carrie and Sami tried to kill each other now that they're in the same town again?" asked Eric.

Brady laughed and accepted the change of subject. "Not yet, but give it time. Carrie and Rafe want to start this P.I. business, and you know sooner or later Sami's going to get jealous of those late night stakeouts."

"And Belle?"

"Last I heard, she and Shawn were in Australia."

"Last I heard, too. That picture she sent everyone with Claire and the platypus?"

"Right." Brady nodded. "They seem happy. Sami and Carrie, under all that drama, they're fine, too."

"'Under all that drama' being the operative phrase?"

"It used to drive me nuts," Brady mused, swirling the wine in his glass. He wouldn't have any more, he decided. Deal or no deal, he didn't want to put Eric in the position of deciding whether to snitch on him for self-destructive behavior. "The way the focus of the family, or the town, or the world was always on one of them. We all joke about Sami, but Belle and Carrie, they're attention magnets too."

"Yeah," Eric agreed. "I liked it, though. Sometimes I was okay with being able to hide."

 _Is that what you're doing now? Trying to hide something with a priest's collar?_ But everything was telling Brady not to push. "Now that we're all adults, it feels, not better or worse, just different," he said instead. "Of course, I'm the bad son, so maybe it's easier for me to say."

"You're not the bad son!" Eric objected.

"Compared to the priest? You're the golden boy."

"I'm not golden in any way." The words were too heavy.

"I didn't mean it as an insult," said Brady, and he hadn't. "And I don't feel anything like rivalry for you. Sami and Carrie are enough, right? If you ever come back to Salem, I'm going to be the first one welcoming you with open arms." The more Brady thought about the idea, the more he liked it. "It's been a long time. Are you ever coming back to Salem?"

"It's not really in my control. The Church will decide."

And two years later, the Church decided.

 ** _5\. Salem Again: 2012_**

It was a perpetual surprise, what was the same and what was different now that Eric was a priest. At first, even the smallest similarities startled him: yes, sunlight felt pleasantly warm on his face as it always had.

The differences startled him too. He had been told many times that people who did not know him, and some who did, would react to what his collar represented rather than to Eric himself. At the seminary, they had taught him that this was a good thing, if disconcerting; his identity ought to be rooted in God.

Even though he expected it, though, each time he actually experienced it there was a slight jar. The jar was there in the deferential smile of an old woman and the superior sneer from someone who didn't think there was anything to the Catholic Church beyond the molestation scandal. It was there, too, in the immense pride of his mother and grandmother and the skittishness of his oldest nephew, Will, who was openly in love with a man.

He couldn't quite put his finger on what he'd seen in Nicole's response when he'd turned to face her in his grandmother's pub. The delight had been for him; the nervousness and disbelief might have been for him or for the collar.

He also couldn't quite work out why his family had neglected to tell him that Kristen DiMera had not only returned to Salem, but managed to become romantically entangled with Brady, of all people. The last time he had been in Salem, Kristen had been desperate to make herself Brady's stepmother. From where Eric stood, the turn of events was abrupt and bizarre.

He'd tried to express his concern to John, and John had been disinterested to the point of coolness. Eric wasn't sure that John had ever been so dismissive of him, not even when Eric had openly tried to prevent John and Marlena's remarriage.

As for Brady himself, well, it quickly became clear that Brady took the same defensive attitude toward anyone who dared to imply that Kristen's motives might not be entirely pure. Eric had a grumpy thought that he had warned Brady about Kristen back when they'd both been kids and Brady ought to have listened. Then he laughed at himself. Why should Brady have listened? They'd spoken face to face on only a handful of occasions.

But Eric was home, and Eric would do better.

It took a few awkward attempts to get Brady to join him for lunch, and even then Kristen made a point of escorting Brady to the Town Square and kissing him goodbye rather passionately. Eric received the message and did his best to hide how little he liked it.

Brady favored Eric with what Eric would have called a shit-eating grin in his pre-priestly days. Eric returned his most mild smile, the one that was so useful when hearing confessions.

"You really went through with it," said Brady, not for the first time.

"Yes." Eric stated the obvious, not for the first time.

"Don't you miss it?" Brady cut his eyes toward Kristen's retreating form with real appreciation.

"If it wasn't hard to give up, there wouldn't be much of a point, would there?"

"So if it _is_ hard to give up, are you sure that bringing your extremely impulsive and volatile first love right into the rectory is a great idea?" Apparently being tired of questions about Kristen hadn't left Brady with any less of a desire to question Eric about Nicole.

"Yes," said Eric. "I'm sure it's a great idea. Nicole wants to change and all I'm doing is giving her a space where she can make that possible."

"I've told myself that about Nicole, too," said Brady.

"And about Kristen?" Eric tried.

Brady made a face, but didn't seem argumentative or offended. "There was Nicole," he said slowly, and Eric wasn't sure whether Brady was talking about Eric's romantic history or Brady's own. "And the journalist in Africa. And wasn't there a thing with a princess?"

"Serena and Greta." Eric supplied the names.

"Were there any other serious ones?" Brady asked. "Serious girlfriends I don't know about?"

"No," Eric returned. "You've got the highlights."

Eric wasn't about to tell Brady that he and Serena hadn't been that serious and he and Greta had never even had sex. Gentlemen didn't have those conversations, let alone priests who were out in public half a mile from their home churches. And as a practical matter, if Brady was already concerned about Eric working closely with Nicole, Eric didn't need to share the fact that no woman had ever had quite the hold on him that Nicole had managed.

First love was a thing.

"Chloe," he told Brady. He was pretty sure that Chloe had been first. If Brady had had someone special in high school, he wouldn't have been such a miserable piece of work upon his return to Salem. "And Nicole. Rafe Hernandez' sister."

"Arianna," Brady confirmed.

"Madison James. And Kristen."

"Very good," said Brady.

An ugly divorce from his little sister's best friend, a few flings with his brother's first love, two dead women, and his former stepmother. If Eric had been the judgmental sort, and he tried not to be, he would have felt reassured that maybe it was best to only have had one deep, complete love in his life.

"But Kristen's the last one," said Brady seriously.

And Eric determined that he would fight that battle later, when he knew more about what was going on with John and Marlena and Brady himself.

For the moment, they just had lunch.

 _ **And 1: 2016**_

"You aren't going," said Victor, as if he, who had been rummaging through his grandson's mail, somehow had the moral high ground.

"I am," said Brady. "Do you need me to say it in Greek?"

"If you would have applied yourself you could have learned Greek long ago. If you started now, you still could. It would be a better use of your time than running after Roman and Marlena's degenerate son."

"Goodbye, Grandfather," said Brady. Eric's hearing would start in less than an hour, and Brady intended to be there early.

"Do you not care about Daniel at all?" Victor called after him, and Brady didn't dignify that with a response. He didn't want to make himself late by pointing out that Victor had shared precisely as much DNA with Daniel as Brady shared with Eric. Family was about far more than blood.

* * *

Eric was grateful to be handcuffed and led to the van that would take him to the courthouse. He had spent a sleepless night pondering what he should say at the hearing.

He knew, thanks to his attorney, that the state was desperate to clear space in its prison. If he, a first time offender with an exemplary prison record, expressed regret, he would almost certainly be released to house arrest as long as someone was willing to take responsibility for him. His family being what it was, he knew that someone would offer.

It wouldn't be difficult to express regret. He had felt nothing but regret since the moment of the accident.

It _would_ be difficult to do something that would shorten his punishment. He deserved punishment.

He'd prayed about it, of course. He'd gotten nothing but a memory of one of the priests in the seminary laughing off a complicated scenario with a deceptively simple "honesty is the best policy."

Nonetheless, honestly seemed too easy now when in the past it had seemed too difficult.

If only he'd shared more of his feelings with Nicole…

He swallowed hard and sat as comfortably as he could while handcuffed.

* * *

Roman, like Brady, had arrived early, and they crossed paths in the parking lot. Roman clapped Brady on the shoulder, and Brady felt the echo of Eric in the gesture. He hadn't had any doubts to begin with; if he had, the simple touch would have alleviated them.

"Glad you're here," said Roman.

"Me too," said Brady. The suddenness of the hearing had kept John and Marlena from attending; they were halfway across the world, visiting Carrie. Brady knew that Eric would consider it good luck. He hated for his mother to see him like this.

The suddenness of the hearing hadn't kept Nicole from attending. She'd simply chosen not to do so. Brady supposed that that was better than her showing up and demanding that Eric be forced to serve out his sentence as originally issued. Maggie, to her immense credit, hadn't shown up either. Brady assumed that that was due to her longstanding friendship with Marlena. Or maybe Maggie, like Brady himself, just didn't feel that it was her place to judge another human being who had done something dangerous and destructive under the influence of a controlled substance.

Brady hadn't asked.

Brady didn't care.

Brady knew better than to push his luck.

He wanted his brother **_out_** , and whatever the motivations of all interested parties, he was glad that they were not standing in his way.

"I know it's breaking Doc's heart not to be here," said Roman.

Brady nodded. He'd gotten that phone call, too, not to mention separate calls from Sami, Carrie, and Belle. He'd promised to hold down the fort, and he had no intention of letting his family down.

"I wish to hell she and John could be here," Roman continued. "They've got a perfect situation to say they'll take custody of him. I can offer, but me being a cop and my place being small will work against me. Even though there won't be any favoritism, they won't like the appearance."

"They don't have to have that worked out today, do they?" asked Brady.

"No, but it helps," said Roman.

Brady considered that, while he would rather have had his mother than a pile of money, being born the sole heir to a fortune had its advantages.

* * *

Eric prayed before he walked into the hearing.

He didn't pray for the judge to release him early. He wasn't even certain that he wanted that.

Instead, he prayed for the strength to be honest but also calm and collected. He prayed for the strength not to do anything to upset or shame his family. He prayed that whoever showed up to support him would not be much the worse for the experience. And he added his gratitude that he knew for a fact that someone would be there to speak on his behalf.

He felt oddly detached when he answered the questions, many of which he had answered at his original sentencing. Yes, he felt great guilt at what he had done, and yes, he accepted any punishment that society deemed appropriate. Yes, he had tried his best to help others while incarcerated; it was the only way to pay tribute to the man whose life he had taken, as giving his own life would not bring Daniel back.

He was barely aware that his father and brother were in the room until the judge asked where Eric would go should his sentence be converted to house arrest in order to alleviate some of the strain on the overburdened prison system.

Eric froze. He knew that he had a family that would take him in.

He just wasn't sure that he wanted that.

Roman stood up. Brady gestured for him to sit down, and Eric sighed with relief. Hearing a sibling speak on his behalf was bad; hearing a parent do it would have been worse.

"Your honor, if I may?" The judge nodded, and Brady launched into a description of his house, which he claimed he had just purchased to provide a stable and appropriate home for his young son. He even handed his phone to the judge so the judge could see the photographs.

"The listing says this house is still on the market," the judge said.

"We haven't closed yet, so the website hasn't caught up," said Brady smoothly, and he elaborated on what his attorney would do later that day. Eric watched with interest. It was rare that Brady acted like the trust fund baby that he was. John hadn't raised Brady much differently from the way he'd raised Eric when he'd been juggling three children on a police officer's salary.

Eric was so busy musing that Brady was really very good at this, and that it was admirable how well Brady could slide from one situation to another, that he nearly lost track of where he was and what they were doing.

He was brought back to reality when the judge asked Brady about his relationship to Eric.

"Brothers," said Brady automatically before hesitating for the first time. Eric almost laughed. Brady was going to have to explain their extremely complicated family tree, made even more complicated by the fact that John and Marlena weren't currently married. They had no DNA in common and at the moment they weren't even technically stepbrothers.

"So, friends," the judge corrected when Brady had shared the details.

Brady scowled.

Despite his resolution to be serene and grateful and repentant, Eric scowled too.

"It doesn't make any difference," the judge said, noticing their reactions.

It did make a difference. Eric knew better than to offer any corrections at this point, but it made a difference.

The judge agreed that if the particulars checked out, Eric was to be released for six months of house arrest followed by two years' probation. It was a far cry from his original sentence.

"See you, Brother," Brady called as Eric was led out. There wasn't a hint of sarcasm in his tone. Brady had started using _Brother_ almost as a pet name years before, and he'd done it more and more since Eric's life had gone to hell.

No matter that there was no blood between them.

No matter that at the moment, Brady's father wasn't even married to Eric's mother.

 _Brother_ was something they'd both chosen— slowly and quickly, consciously and unconsciously.

* * *

Brady glanced around his new house. If there was a tiny silver lining to Eric's incarceration, it was that it had prompted Brady to buy this place. It was right for Tate. It was right for Brady himself to take a step away from his grandfather and acknowledge that he was a grown man with a child of his own.

It was good that he had had the money to buy a house so quickly and easily. Victor had remarked that he was the reason that Brady had had the money in the first place; Brady had sharply invoked Isabella's name, and Victor had shut the hell up.

Brady had no memories of Isabella, but he thought that she would approve. He'd seen the photographs a millions times— his parents with Eric and Sami, playing baseball, playing soccer, playing poker. Isabella had gazed adoringly at Eric. Once, Brady had been jealous when he'd thought of those pictures. Now, the feeling was more bittersweet. After all, Marlena sometimes looked at Brady in exactly the same way.

One way or another, Brady and Eric were always going to be brothers.

Of course, that didn't mean that they wouldn't spend dinner that night nagging John and Marlena to set a wedding date. Brady had already invited Paul and Belle over for backup, and he was thinking of putting Sami and Carrie on speakerphone. He'd have to have Eric call Sami ahead of time to make sure she would toe the party line rather than come out with some ridiculous argument about Roman and Marlena getting together again. Even Roman didn't think that was a good idea anymore.

Brady flicked on the lights while he waited. It was late morning, but the sky was dark. There would be a summer thunderstorm sooner rather than later.

The police van pulled up in front of the house, and Eric's escort set his ankle monitor and left them alone.

The first crack of lightening split the air as the van vanished from sight. Eric glanced upward. "That's not a good sign," he decided.

"Sure it is," said Brady. "Do you remember way back when Dad and Marlena still had the penthouse? It was one of the first times I ever saw you, and there was a thunderstorm in the middle of the night. I came into your room."

Eric smiled at the memory. "I always wondered whether you were really afraid or whether you were just looking for an excuse to be nosy."

"A little of both," Brady admitted. "I probably won't come running to you when it rains, now, if you were worried about that." He flashed a grin of his own. "I don't make any promises on behalf of Tate, though."

"Thank you," said Eric.

"For not promising that Tate won't—"

"For giving me a place to stay. I know Mom and John would have done it—"

"Always better to avoid living with your parents if you can," said Brady sagely, which he knew was a little rich considering he'd fled his grandfather's mansion less than a week before. "Besides, when I was… When I accused you of seducing Kristen, and then you gave up your chance at justice so my dad could live… look, when I apologized, I promised I would be right there with you. I meant it. I know you take responsibility for Daniel, but don't think you'd be where you are now if so many things hadn't happened that wouldn't have happened if I wasn't your brother. If our parents weren't our parents. Kristen came for us because of them, and I didn't handle it as well as I could have."

"Let's not rehash that," said Eric.

"No," agreed Brady. "Let's not." He pulled Eric into a hug, which he hadn't been allowed to do at the hearing. "Welcome home, Brother."

 **The End**


End file.
